Page 4221 - Week 13 - Thursday, 27 November 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
trying to generate a BCR; but from what I understand, the discount rate for a PPP should be higher, should be in the vicinity of 10, 11 or 12 per cent.
If you put the availability payment at 12 per cent, the payment is around $100 million every year for light rail. We are not spending $1 billion up front; we are going to be paying for it over 20 or 30 years. When you include the interest, the finance costs, for light rail, that comes to $100 million per year—$100 million per year, every year. That is a phenomenal amount of money. I think it is absolutely scandalous that you could have a government committed to a liability of $100 million every year for decades on the back of a flippant decision taken by a few MLAs following the 2012 election.
Today the government are compounding the folly through its legislation. Today they tabled legislation which is going to take away ACAT appeals, take away AD(JR) appeals and reduce common law appeals. Further to this, they are seeking to reduce the documentation for the most complex project in the history of the ACT. They are not reducing the documentation for development applications for a pergola, a deck or a house. That is going in the other direction; they are becoming more complex. Yet when it comes to light rail, they are actually reducing documentation. So you are going to have more documentation for a development application for a pergola than you are going to have for light rail infrastructure.
Further to this, they are seeking to ignore the planning committee and to ignore advice from statutory office holders. Does nobody in the government have a problem with this? Does no MLA opposite have a problem with any of this? If not, it is a worry. It is a real worry that there is such a culture opposite that they will stifle and suppress anybody who seeks to raise questions about this scandalous project and this scandalous expenditure of $1 billion.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Housing and Minister for Tourism and Events) (4.08): I thank Ms Porter for raising this MPI today; I am always pleased to have the opportunity to talk about the government’s infrastructure program.
This package of infrastructure works is vitally important for two reasons. It helps shield the territory economy against the decisions of the Liberal Party, the friends and ideological soul mates of those opposite; and it helps ensure that we are taking the steps now to deliver the infrastructure that our city will need as it grows over the next decade and beyond.
Those opposite are not always the quickest at adapting to new ideas, or indeed to undertake any original thought, but even they must have noticed by now, surely, that the relentless pursuit of cuts by their idols on the other side of the lake is having a significant impact upon the territory economy. I am an optimist, so I still hope there will be a time in the future when those opposite realise that putting a cruel and impersonal ideology ahead of a community actually does real damage to real people. They have not got there yet; of course, we can still live in hope.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video